Our Shabby Game
by Sobekcroc
Summary: Followup to "Metamorphosis." I assume that, in the tradition of Apophis, Nirrti didn't die. Please review, this is my first fanfic!
1. Capture

Our Shabby Game

Disclaimer: Just like the rest of the writers around here, I don't own any proper (or improper, for that matter) nouns.  Characters, the Stargate… no, they're not mine.  But I want 'em…

Setting: sometime after Metamorphosis (season 7), same planet.

Spoilers: I don't think there's anything, but it probably makes no sense if you haven't seen Metamorphosis.

"Well, SG-1, it seems that I've once again beat you at your own shabby game."  Nirrti's coy smile came from in back of three Jaffa, each pointing a staff weapon at a member of the team.

"Hey!  Just because we don't wear tight, shiny leather doesn't mean we're shabby," responded Jack.  A moment later, he turned to Daniel.  "Does it?" he asked, mockingly afraid of committing a fashion faux pas.  Daniel could only raise his eyebrows... he wasn't quite sure he wanted to see any of his friends in Nirrti's idea of a suitable outfit, and absolutely sure he wouldn't be caught dead in one.

More guards came out of adjoining hallways, and bound and gagged their prisoners.  "Well, this sucks," said Jack through a mouthful of cloth.  "Carter, next time I try to take Daniel's advice about an attack plan, zat both of us and use your own idea."

"Yes, sir," she responded, her face a mixture of irritation, amusement, and disappointment.  Daniel felt a little miffed that Jack was so quick to condemn his idea, which happened to be based on old information.  _We would have won "our shabby game," if you hadn't changed your guard positions!_ Daniel thought angrily at the It would have worked if Jack had known that Nirrti had recently changed the guard station configurations, but that was impossible for any of them to know.  He was probably kidding, anyway, though.  At least Teal'c was still free and clear.  He was supposed to meet them along the way, after collecting certain control crystals to operate Nirrti's lab.

"I've already caught your fourth," Nirrti said gleefully, as if she had read the archeologist's mind.  "Your new rendezvous point will be in a dungeon cell, I'm afraid."  Her liquid eyes betrayed no sympathy, and suddenly, looking into those eyes, Daniel wondered what Nirrti's host was like.  A flash of light from those eyes quickly brought the man back to the present as he was bumped in the back with a staff and led down a staircase with the others.

*          *          *

"I blame one of you for not making sure she was dead," O'Neill informed his team in their cells.

Carter was smart enough not to comment, and also had something of an excuse—she had been operated on twice by the genetic processor machine, and was quite out of it at the time.  Daniel was unusually silent, probably unhappy that such a seemingly easy mission had gone so wrong.  All they'd originally been sent to do was disengage anything left of the technology from the building and cart it back home.  There were many uses for such a manipulator on Earth, but at the top of the list was a permanent change of Jaffa DNA—to keep them from ever needing symbiotes again in their lives, and to keep them from passing on the genes that made Goa'uld larvae necessary.  The only problem with that was that no one on Earth would be know how to operate the apparatus, and certainly no one would want to be a test subject.  Carter knew that much from just being in the thing for a few minutes.  The changing was like nothing else: trillions of wounds tearing open as her very DNA twisted, ripped apart, and tried to patch themselves together in wrong, unnatural sequences.  The thought suddenly struck her: since she had been changed and reverted by the machine, Nirrti would be most scientifically interested in her.  She muttered an expletive.  She'd rather be enveloped in an opening wormhole's bubbly wave than go back into the machine… at least there would be no pain.

Of course, if it came to that, she would have no choice.  Her duty to the Air Force was to find out how the thing worked and bring it back, and there was little room in the organization for cowardice.  She would go back in if that was her fate.

By the time they got to the cell, she was resigned to entering the device immediately.  She was at once pleasantly surprised and also dismayed that Jack was chosen first.  Colonel O'Neill, she reminded herself.  A fellow officer, not what her heart wanted him to be to her.

"No," she whispered as the Jaffa led him away.  "No," she said louder and clutched at the bars of the same cages they were held in before, then by a telekinetic alien.  "Take me instead," she said—but the Jaffa with their prize were already gone.

Daniel and Teal'c sat nearby, doing their best to ignore Sam's outbursts.  They knew as well as she and Jack that relationships between officers were forbidden.  That didn't mean that they didn't exist, though.

*          *          *


	2. Crocuta crocuta

Thanks for the review!  I hope the story lives up to expectations, and gets away from Metamorphosis.  I know it's shaping up like it, but I'm doing my best.

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"Easy on the material!" Jack told his Jaffa escort as they pushed him before their Goa'uld master.  Or mistress, he supposed, given that the host was a woman.  One who knew how much she could get away with when it came to outfits, he noted.  No, that was probably still the snake in her head.

"Y'know, you people need to take Death 101, or something.  None of you snakeheads has learned even the basics of the concept," he said, gesturing to emphasize his point.  "I mean, Osiris was 'banished to oblivion' for a few thousand years, Apohis we had to kill a couple o' times, and I'm still not convinced we got rid of Hathor.  The only guy we only saw once was Ra, I think."

Though the man projected an air of jaunty confidence, he was almost as afraid as his second in command was for him.  He'd rather be frozen to death in Antarctica than have a slimy snake messing with his DNA and have fun at it, since Carter said it was painful to boot.  _Crap._

The woman did little more than raise an eyebrow and pause.  "I've researched some of the Tauri zoology… I've been wondering how the human physiology would portray the traits of… hmm."  Then she smiled.  "For you, a hyena… a cackling scavenger, incapable of even pack organization without females in charge."  Her wide set eyes turned down to the display readout, and her fingers set to work programming.

"Now, what the crap do you care about hyenas for?  You weren't even famous in hyena country," Jack tried desperately to reason with her.  He couldn't imagine what Carter would think when he started differing to her on command decisions, and laughing at jokes that even Jonas made.  Actually, he couldn't decide which would be worse, but he'd soon find out.

"As the Tauri say, 'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.'  Or," she mused, "in my situation, 'Jacqueline a dull girl.'  In short, I am not above mixing business and pleasure: genetic experiments and the torturing my favorite band of 'peaceful explorers,' respectively."  She triumphantly tapped a last command into the interface, and looked up again.  "You should be experiencing the gene resequencing at any time."

It had started before she began her last sentence had begun, and she had known it—or Jack imagined so, judging from that his initial yell and following grunts and groans had begun at the same time as the machine.  _Carter was putting this mildly,_ he thought, his mind clouded by the figurative smoke of the explosions happening throughout his body.  He shivered even as flames licked the roots of every nerve.  _And how the hell does she know about Earth sayings?  Don't tell me the Goa'uld have internet…_  He couldn't understand why he hadn't collapsed into a fetal position on the floor yet, and guessed that there was some kind of light forcefield keeping him upright.  The treatment seemed to last an eternity.

*          *          *

Nirrti's eyes flashed with interest, but there was little to see.  Not that watching Tauri being tortured wasn't fascinating… it was only that no obvious change would occur for about half an hour.  She was having Goa'uld designed audio and video playback recorders installed in the dungeon even as she watched, by a few of her more intelligent Jaffa.  The real satisfaction of today would be watching her new creations take shape and interact with each other.  She had interesting choices selected for the other troublesome members of SG-1, too.  She sneered at O'Neill standing on the platform, his own DNA swirling in technicolor holograms around him.  His torture would be the greatest, though, simply because he led them.  As he succumbed to his new DNA, the team would fall apart at the seams.  _Another human expression,_ she thought to herself.  _I really should stop reading Tauri fanfiction.  But it's addictive!_

Finally, the machine was done with its work.  The human started to collapse, but was caught by two Jaffa.  They awaited their mistress' orders.

"Take him back to the cells," she said, her voice a Goa'uld growl.  "Bring me the Jaffa of Apophis next."

Indeed, interesting choices.  A game of exposition down in the cell block, to be played as she created new rules, cancelled old ones, and changed the players.  A wonderful game.

*          *          *


	3. Scientific Possibility

=)  I very much like where this story is headed.  Low-action chapter, but I'm pretty sure there'll be lots in the next one.

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Teal'c, as usual, was the first to hear them coming.  Daniel and Sam, the latter having calmed down somewhat, had been inspecting the room for any sign of escape.  There didn't appear to be any, especially considering that she had caught them before and probably had since fixed any weakness that the team might use to escape.  They were stuck in cages of rusted iron bars that rose into the ceiling at the command of a handpad, ten feet out of reach.  Nirrti could no longer use her alien mutants to control the bars.  The handpad was the only weakness they'd identified; the Jaffa didn't look like they were about to betray anyone anytime soon, and the bars were foolproof—even to Teal'c's formidable strength.  Sam couldn't fit through, and the rest of them had no hope if she couldn't.

One Jaffa fingered the 'pad, and the other dragged Jack into the cell as the permanent guards in the room looked on with staff weapons raised.  "You next," said the one now in the cell to Teal'c.  He now also raised his staff, and pushed Teal'c in the back with it up the stairs.  His companion followed.

Sam knelt down by her commanding officer.  "Carter, why didn't you _tell_ me it was so bad?"  He held his head, and showed no sign of getting up off of the floor.

"I'm not sure the human language was built to portray that much pain, sir," she said.  "To describe it, I would have had to make up a word: like 'intinegrient.'"  She paused, then added, "Would that have been better?"

"Maybe!" Jack said, but thought, _I don't understand half the stuff you say anyway.  I'm surprised you haven't been making up any of the words you used before now._

She and Daniel managed to prop him up against the bars, but every movement was a new pain.  He massaged his temples with both hands, eyes closed, and told them what happened.  "Nirrti's changing us for fun this time around.  Less scientific interest, more let's-see-what-this-base-pair-does."  How he knew what a base pair was eluded him.  He must've been listening to Carter's briefings again.  It was too hard to think about that now.

"Fun?  What do you mean, sir?"

Carter didn't know the Goa'uld well enough if she didn't know what they do for fun.  "Fun.  As in our misery for her amusement," he said, suddenly wanting to avoid specifics on his experience.  He tried to get a degree of respect from his team for being the leader, but the announcement that he had been infused with a Goa'uld archive hyena gene print was sure to lower the bar on his leadership value.  Not to mention that Carter and Daniel probably knew more less-than-enviable things about hyenas than Nirrti had told him.

"What did she do to you?"  Carter's wide and confused blue eyes were almost too much.  Why did she always have to know everything about everything?

"She's changing me into a damn hyena," he said, eyes closed again and voice helplessly angry.  He didn't want to see her face, whether it showed disappointment, pity, amusement, horror, or anything else.  He couldn't take the added pain of what she now thought of him.

"I can think of worse," Sam said, but her comment didn't have the intended effect.  "Sir, I don't think the human form can physically be changed into another spec…"  She trailed off, remembering that Teal'c was once changed into a few dozen poisonous alien dragonflies by the venom of their mother insect.  Also remembering Teal'c's tale of terror, hiding in empty buildings covered in cobweb-esque matter coming from his own skin, she decided not to say anything else.

"Yeah.  I mean, at least she didn't decide to get ironic and turn you into a Goa'uld," Daniel tried to agree as cheerfully as possible.  He received a whack from the Colonel for his idea.

"Shut up!  She'll probably change her mind and change me into that if she hears you!"

"Sir, is she planning on turning us all into hyenas?"

"No… sounded like she had different ideas for all of us."

The two younger associates looked at each other.  "This just gets progressively worse," Daniel said dismally.

"I wonder what she has in mind for Teal'c," wondered Sam aloud.


	4. Flight

There's a spoiler for "1969" in here.  Not future knowledge, but whatever.

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Teal'c was pushed before the platform.  He stepped up onto it before the Jaffa could make him trip over the podium, and turned to Nirrti after giving the men a good glare.  He stood proud and tall and breathed a deep yet casual breath.

"I'm sure Apophis would envy me my position if he were still with us.  But your team's capacity for dispatching my species is one of the reasons we inhibit your cultures… also, you make much more articulate hosts," she added, admiring her right hand, which was entwined in a gold and red-amber ribbon device.  "Unas are somewhat limited in that capacity."

Teal'c could have cared less.  He remained silent, looking straight ahead.  His attention, however, was everywhere else.  There were four guards in the room: two in back of Nirrti, a gold-branded First Prime and a silver second in command; and one each to his left and right flanks.  The ones to the rear were about three meters away, and the ones in front four or five.  They all stood with zats ready.  Their mistress' prisoners, after all, were not to be too severely damaged.

"I see you're very interested in conversation," she said sarcastically, noticing his inattention.  She raised a carefully groomed eyebrow while giving the large Jaffa a look that said she was anything but impressed with him.  She didn't seem to notice that he was only present in body.

Teal'c had found his opening.  He couldn't imagine where the sound was coming from, but a soft roar had begun to build in the chamber.  It built slowly in pitch and volume.  It seemed to be coming from outside, and it suddenly came to him: it was the sound of a UAV, about to fly almost directly over the Hindi-architectured compound.  He tensed to spring, and every gaze in the room snapped to him automatically.  A split second later, the roar reached its zenith and their gazes swung up to the ceiling just as quickly.  The captive sprang at the Jaffa behind him to the left, bowling into the young man and twisting a gray serpentine zat'nik'tel out of his grasp.  He quickly activated it, and shot it a second later after the barrel had raised itself from the trigger area.  The first shot left Nirrti's Jaffa out cold on the floor.  Teal'c twisted around to aim at the Goa'uld just as she brought her hand up to blast him into the wall behind him.  The weapon was quickly discharged again to prevent this, and Teal'c kept it aimed at her.  The other three Jaffa had aimed their zats at the former detainee, but now looked shocked.

"If one of you shoots me once, I will kill her."  His dark eyes conveyed well his fiery spirit as he looked from one Jaffa to the next.  They appeared as young commandoes on their first mission, minus a commanding officer to tell them when to move and what to do.  Both hands on each zat, their faces showed fear and uncertainty as they looked from each other to Teal'c nervously.

Nirrti would have all of their heads on a platter if they let him go without a fight.  Worse still, their goddess' eyes were still open.  She was conscious and would know if they betrayed Her, even to tell the dark man to shoot them to try to prove that they put up a fight and let him go.  If only She could bring up Her hand again to shove the _shol'va_ into the plastered wall and break his neck!  It was a no-win situation, but they could not let the _shol'va_ go.  Also, there was no certainty that the zat would knock the prisoner out.  They seemed to have a fifty-fifty result of intense pain and unconsciousness.  The Jaffa to the right front, the middle one of the remaining three, finally set his resolve.  The next looks to his left and right were ones of certainty, and his arms tightened as he prepared to shoot the _shol'va_ in synchronization with his subordinates.  There wouldn't be a body to prove what had happened, but since She was there, She would know what had transpired.  He began to nod, a silent count to three.

The UAV's roar had all but disappeared, but the advantage was now Teal'c's.  He saw everything the middle Jaffa did.  "Stop!" he said, but the other did not.  With a shake of his head, he shot Nirrti a second time and got off a shot each into two of the remaining Jaffa.  The third looked shocked and desperate, yet relieved.

"Jatal Vi'rota," he said, holding up his weapon to point into the air.  Hearing the surrender, Teal'c stunned the man to cover for him.  Like the other Jaffa, he recognized that getting zatted is a good alibi; O'Neill had once done the same to a younger George Hammond the time the team had been slung around the sun in a wormhole to land in the year 1969 in the gateroom, then a missile silo housed inside Cheyenne mountain.

The thought of O'Neill brought him a pang of pity for the younger man.  Whatever a hyena was, Teal'c didn't imagine that O'Neill's experience would be pleasant.  However, perhaps it could be halted in time to…  The thought trailed off.  What exactly would happen?  Teal'c knew that he was much less than a leading expert on genetics, but from what he knew one of three things would happen.  If human and hyena DNA were completely incompatible, his friend could die.  Otherwise, he might adopt a few traits of the animal, or worse yet, become the animal.  This third chance was the least likely, unless this hyena diverged from the human genetic path relatively recently.

The thumps of Jaffa boots on the floor were audible, about ten at a run judging from the sound.  There wasn't time to shoot the Goa'uld a third time, and Teal'c turned and ran just as his ten Jaffa entered the room opposite him.  "_Shol'va_, kree!" he heard the leader shout just as three staff weapon bolts burnt circles on the wall.

Many corridors and zat blasts later, Teal'c was almost free.  At the entryway, he managed to escape with only one shot from a zat.  He imagined that he now had about five hundred Jaffa looking for him, give or take a hundred.  There were ten posted at the gate.  From his position, he assumed that he could take six with his zat before they started shooting back.  The UAV was nowhere in sight and its motors were not to be heard, no chance of another distraction from it.  Four to one wasn't good odds, and more would come when they heard the firefight, but it was his only choice.  He picked his targets and ran.

Khiewh, khiewh sang the zat in his hand.  The blue bolts seared past the boulder Teal'c ducked behind, going both ways after about two seconds of only Teal'c's shots.  He managed to get 7 down before they fired back.  The boulder soon became scorched from the energy exchange misses, and bits of stone clipped off of all sides of the monolith.  The Jaffa used all sides of the boulder to shoot from, so that the ones at the gate wouldn't know where he would appear next; the maneuver worked, and he picked off the last three one at a time.  Pushing off from the granite, Teal'c bolted for the DHD as a large group of Jaffa topped a hill a hundred yards away.  As he tapped the symbols for Earth and activated his G.D.O., they opened fire.  They landed pell-mell around him, and he was almost at the gate when an orange bolt hit him in the back.  His breath caught in his throat, and he staggered and fell the last three steps into the pool of rippling light.


End file.
